


Epilogue in Three Parts

by d__T



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Depression, Feelings, Suicide, gotg2 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 12:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11486487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d__T/pseuds/d__T
Summary: Kraglin has lost everything. What's left to lose?





	1. Three Decacycles

**Author's Note:**

> A cycle is a day, a decacycle is ten days, three decacycles is thirty days.

The last three decacycles have passed in a haze. Achingly slow and in the blink of an eye at the same time. Kraglin can't remember anything, really, after Peter gave him the arrow. Like he stopped forming memories after that point. Like he was already dead.

He goes through the motions. He eats with the crew at mealtimes, pilots when he's asked, and stays the fuck out of sight when nobody needs him. People don't need him often. Peter, idiot that he is, knows enough to see that Kraglin's behavior is atypical at best. He tries to give Kraglin things to do, he'd read that engagement is key somewhere.

Kraglin isn't _fucking stupid_ , and knows exactly what Peter's doing. He tells this to the bottle of moonshine tucked in the side of his jumpsuit. Twice, to make sure he said it right the first time.

Peter can smell it on him, the worse-than-usual rankness paired with the alcohol that shouldn't have survived the detonation of the Eclector. But the Quadrant, _oh_ the Quadrant, had been Kraglin's home longer than Peter's been alive. He knows some things about her.

Peter takes Kraglin off piloting. Says he shouldn't be flying if he ain't mostly sober.

Kraglin tells Peter, very eloquently, to go fuck himself. He looks like he's about to cry.

Peter lets him to it.


	2. Three Decacycles

The last three decacycles have passed in a haze. Even Stakar conveyed his condolences. And Kraglin only felt hollow inside, the worn smooth anger of  _ you should have let him explain himself _ . The vitriol of his own rash words. He thanks Stakar, and turns away as soon as he can. And time accelerates away from that point, twisting deeper into his mind the three part harmony of what Stakar had said, of what Yondu had said, of what Kraglin had said. There's no redemption there, and none in the rusty dregs of the bottle of moonshine, either.


	3. Three Decacycles

The last three decacycles have passed in a haze, and now he feels clear eyed. Like he's awoken crystallized with certainty. This is how he finds himself in the airlock, thinking about how easy it it is to exhale. Just relax. He's watched fresh meat fuck up the air evac/deploy mask sequence before. He's heard crewmembers exhale on the comms with their space modules shot off. He held Yondu's ruined face in his hands, and kissed his forehead. He _knows_ what decompression does to a person.

His mask module is in the pile of junk he's been sleeping on in the engine bay. It's loud and warm there; it was comfortable in a way that dulled his mind easily. His mask module is where it belongs.

He flips the airlock switch, and he exhales.


	4. No Redemption Here

Boiling to death from the inside is excruciating. Kraglin knew this. He knows it now with a new intimacy. And if he'd had expectations, he would have never expected to feel anything again.

So when he feels the sharp pain of fingers tweaking his ear, and hears the characteristic inhale that directly precedes Yondu about to lay the fuck into someone, to say that it takes him by surprise would be a gross understatement.

He's never been so happy to have the tirade directed at him, and yet the words between  _ Obfonteri _ and  _ what the hell did you think you was doing? _ are about Peter. Peter screaming against the inner door of the airlock, hands sliding from where they hit metal to the deck where he's rocking back and forth. The other Guardians uncertain if they should reach out to him. The broken, awful sound of a child in a man's body wondering, demanding,  _ why him too _ .

Kraglin hadn't quite figured out how to exist in a way that makes sense to his selfness, but he knows to the core of his amorphous being that he's made one last unforgivable mistake.

And now he can't run anymore.


End file.
